


Unending envisioning enveloped in shatterproof folds - lingering alone and forsaken

by Vuetyris



Series: Operative Warren [3]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Canon relevance, Depersonalization, Despite the plan, Disassassociation, Empathy, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Imprisoned Tenno, Isolation Cell, Massacre, Mental Instability, Mild Cannibalism, Panic Attack, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Somatic Link - Freeform, Survivor Guilt, Telepathy, Transferance Project - Freeform, Warframe Death, anxiety attack, emotional stress, phantom pains, suicide mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 13:52:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15820191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vuetyris/pseuds/Vuetyris
Summary: The somatic link; a mental surge to connect a void tainted mind to a receiving body molded into living puppetry. Senses matched, motions matched, perfected down to the smallest, inexcusable detail… transmitting the puppet’s death one to one. Phantom pains ache against healthy nerves, organs askew as they remain in place… one can only take so much.





	1. Transfer of Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> This has been broken into two chapters for ease of readability; dividing in two chunks make it easier to consume over one long singular page.
> 
> Be warned, includes visceral graphic content with a teenage character.
> 
> -+- Kudos and comments are encouraged! -+-

Static flourishes through his mind, creeping through bleed anxious nerve endings as the notions of sliced flesh blooms. Fingers clutch around his stomach as evisceration cascades through him, metallic chitin scrapping through a reinforced hide as the pod hisses and concedes – dulling the pervasive agony as the somatic connection snaps. Teeth grit beneath a gilded mask, contorting in the lingering pain back against the reclined cushions. Warren’s thoughts run muddied as the semblance of warframe and personhood merges – disassociation blinding him as he lashes out at the figures above him – sentients or Orokin guards?

He was just with them a second ago, his thoughts lurch; his stomach balances between phantom lacerations and nausea, grasping the edge of the somatic container to find something to stabilize his mind. A notion that only lasts for a moment, a clawed metallic hand yanking his collar over the edge and lands on his side.

Evisceration still rings in his mind; sentient claws digging into his warframe’s gut, dagger-end limbs piercing chest and leg – the piercing ringing that carried through the somatic link as he lies curled against the floor. “Put me back,” his consciousness swells – he can’t just abandon them, his heart aches, reaching for the edge of the somatic cradle. “I can handle it,” he barely snarls, clutching his stomach as it lurches.

An Orokin gauntlet yanks his wrist away.

He just needs a few seconds to retrieve them, pull them back from the brink.

Warren’s void imbued fist strikes the guard in the shin.

And agony digs through his cheek as his head throws back, fumbling back to the floor with a his; his hands hold against the mask held over his mouth and the digging barbs within. Digits poke against the junction beneath his eyes where streaks of tears already make their mark.

A firm ‘no’.

His gaze narrows beneath his tussled hair soaked by sweat, crawling into a half-kneel.

“Get up,” the guard commands.

No hope, resounds.

They’re dead.

His vision fogs into a dissociative mess, clutching his aching stomach as pain prickles through his nerves, reminding him of the visceral trauma taken blunt by the warframe on the other end. Their life sacrificial, a means to the end as he only guides them at the behest of the Orokin presiding as he pulls himself back to his feet. The barbs prod against his cheek as he strains to hold himself together, body trembling beneath the resurging pain transmitted from the warframe to himself.

A mild conversation between the guard and the director bounces aimlessly through his fragmented focus. Purely muddied by the agony of letting another frame to rot and be horrendously torn apart, to the despondent and uncaring guards tasked to keep him in line, the brutal hidden punishment concealed by a mask kept around his face. His sight remains downcast even as the guard brushes his shoulder – too exhausted to care. “Demon, answer.” They repeat.

Warren can only exhale, motioning off to the same direction he’s pushed every time he’s yanked out of the somatic cradle. All to occurring, the static in his head begins to mitigate; cursing him to listen in blistering apathy. Receptive, but unresponsive.

“Any signs of nervous damage, this time?” the guard questions behind the teenager’s back, keeping an eye on him as the tenno stands quiet.

“Only temporal, as usual,” fingers tap across the translucent screen and the vital signs. “He’s lucky that he’s resilient to permanent nervous damage; at this point any other of them would’ve stopped being a valuable asset.” Warren can only bare to listen to their motions, hands hoisting around his stomach against the occasional spikes of pain, head held downcast in aggressive submission. “A few hours in a waiting rooms should repair the somatic damages.”

No medication. No consultation. Only time and patience.

The guard shoves Warren forth, and he obeys.

They never have time for patience.

As he’s escorted past open terminal chambers, he can catch the chatter from the other somatic links; difficulties in a mission, the overwhelming of sentients on a prospectively important facility – all relayed in the vaguest of terms. Drop and go, the mentality carried through mission command as the guard directs him towards the individual isolation chambers, or more properly termed ‘waiting rooms’ by the Orokin ‘tending’ to the operations. As long as the objective was complete, minimal damage dampening their ‘assets’, it was all that mattered; the warframes as mere tools for the precious obedient soldiers.

As the chamber locks, Warren nestles himself against the brilliant cream of the small room, burrowing his head between his knees as his body trembles and shakes, restraint buckling as he finally takes pause. ‘Calm down…’ he tries to assure himself, goading hopeful that it might work this time. Pain blisters in his gut as he slumps, feeling the armored lances piercing his phantom flesh in every adjustment, cringing and grasping against the sensation of shattered healthy bones. He sighs, head rolling back against the wall as he attempts to sooth the ache through will alone. Eyes squinting at the tingling ache, staring up at the expanses in the ceiling.

Stark white living nerves hum far above his head, too far from where he relegates himself.

All he can do is wait…

And his body agonizes as his mind lulls with apathy.

Void tainted eyes fixate on the barely shifting arboriforms weaved beyond the ceiling ventilation, beaming in exhausted interest. “What secrets do you hide,” he whispers, letting his legs kick out from beneath him to a twinge of pain. There’s a sense of shrapnel in his hip that wasn’t ever there, bones screeching as he tries to stretch his aching muscles as he tries to rest. “How the fuck do you manage such pain,” he huffs. Speaking to living circuitry… his only solace for companionship.

Especially… given how many warframe’s he’s directed to their deaths.

Eyes cast down again, hand enrapture his knees, tugging them close in strained meditation.

Keep himself as small as possible… disperse the pain by coiling it centered. Draw agony once straining in his joints migrate through his nerves, crawling through to nestle inside his chest. To transfer it, compress it to be manageable not just to fast-track his recovery. His head lies back as he listens to the endless noise coursing beneath the wall and above. Idle, he tries to adjust the biting barbs digging into his cheek, each flinch drawing it worse.

Copper streams against his tongue – all he can do is swallow.

“That’s not good…” he complains to himself, releasing a sigh as he stares into the distance. Beyond the arboriforms weaved into the ceiling, past the reinforced struts holding everything together… and further into obscurity.

He does the best he can to adjust the punishing mask held around his face, careful not to let his fingers drift too far back less he desires the bite of razor barbs. Beneath his uniform gloves the mask barely shifts, smudging it back and forth from his skin in hope it’d detach from his cheek.

Even then… he lies back as the pain coils within his chest – the piercing, the broken bones, the lacerations and disemboweling sensation. A scalding as he tries to direct his focus away from the balling in his chest… even as tears welt over the remaining trails. Words like ‘asset’, ‘repair’, demeaning to operating mindless golems with bare simmers of intelligence. The flux between operating and non-function, overwork until faltering into a mission critical.

His hands burrow through his hair, leaning elbows onto knees.

A body wrecked with nervous trauma trembles, hands digging and clutching, hiding himself from the omnipresent hum of the white plants lingering above him. And his mind meanders from agony to agony; a warframe torn in half and eviscerated by a serrated blade, another gored and forced to endure as a timer runs out; eviscerated limb from limb, crushed beneath the rubble of a hopeless escape, coerced to listen to the last gasping of a survivor before slaughtering them on command. Brutalized by way of mental torment, punished for disregarding commands by a blow to the cheek.

Anger streams down the mask as gloved fingers grip his hair; he hopes the sentients win.

The nervous ache in his chest eventually dilutes beneath the beaming arboriforms situated above, contained in self-defeatism as he waits. A reason to keep going, burrowing himself into a well wounded ball as he falters into anxious self-hatred. If he was stronger he wouldn’t be here. If he was stronger he would be somewhere else. If he was stronger he’d already bust his way out already… a reminding as he stares down at his hands catching his tears.

By the time the door hisses open, there’s nothing left to cry about. Empty, devoid.

Disassociation ringing strong as he just moves.

Huddle in the isolation chamber, give self a chance to breathe, then its back to the somatic link; a pattern never ending as he watches another Tenno take the room in his place. “Get a move on!” the guard grumbles, pushing Warren into the somatic chamber as the mission director taps through his narrow field of ‘specialization’.

Suicide missions, he figures, as he steps into the somatic cradle with his sight down cast.

Mist billows as the envelopes fold above him, nestling him in the dampening somatic field as his mind drifts. The same flexes in his mind, the same discomforts as before, the same depersonalization feeling as he drifts between his body and a warframe currently assigned to the pod.

As he lulls between the sensory deprivation and the metal beneath transference palms, the director’s voice rings through his mind. “You must deliver the payload to the specific location on the sentient spire, 50 kilometers from your current location.” Gravel scrapes beneath armored palms as he finds his feet, mind melding with the warframe’s erratic thought patterns. He can feel anxiety bleed through their enigmatic nerves, sickle slim fingers testing their dexterity as he stares out into the projected path.

He jostles the container onto his back as empty sensors graze over his surroundings, tugging the mere strap tight as arch-wing pins clutch around his waist. Powerless, they pull him down as he waits for the voices to fall silent around him; sudden motions make them tremble – if their visors were up he’d guess they’d be bulging. With a quick glance behind him, and a confirmation, the arch-wing surges to life.

The warframe’s delicate feet recoil from the ground as the machinery hums, throwing the debris as he makes one last adjustment to the payload against his sensory back.

Checked, sturdy, he slips forth through the warframe’s joints.

And Warren cuts through the force-field, leaving the scratched cryopod in his wake.

As he slips around wreckage of forgotten carriers he loses himself in the expanse of the warframe’s sullen mind, guiding them formless through the jagged metal as he follows the directed path – the director coaxing him through every malignant detail. Find the location, drop it, and go; an ease of instructions consulted as he drifts through the aftermath of the war between sentient and the Orokin Empire.

He tunes down his reception to the director; “can you hear me?”

The warframe’s mind slips through the notion of his guidance, lulling neutral as he draws the hosting body forth beneath an eviscerated hull, senseless, unreceptive as he tries to call through their nerves again. Slim fingers rest against their chest as he barely follows the instructions of the mission director, vanishing into the debris field as sentient drones canvas he bloody wreckage. Bodies lie crumpled in the vacuum as he waits, feeling muscles flex within the region of the enigmatic body. “Can you hear me?” he tries once more; their shoulders shuffle as he loosens his grip in the somatic link – blood surging through distant veins in haunting agitation.

Warren echoes his mind through the occupied warframe as he watches the crustacean drones bobble through the remnants, clawing against the corpses lingering from the busted hallways. Within, he can feel the warframe tremble under the tension; fear, terror, any mix of emotions that casts their blood to hammer anxious, their breathing vent flexing as he tries to coax them calm. “You’re okay…” he whispers through the connection, mind to mind, unobserved by the commanding mission director lording over his every move.

Against his carefully constructed mannerisms, the warframe’s mind lingers in muddied thought patterns; contorting, fragmented, abstract, prodding against the operator’s own as he guides the body forward and into the vast chill of space. Their thoughts strain to answer him, figments of words choked by an addled mind buried in confusion. “My name is Jacob Warren,” the tenno barely smiles – hopeful they can understand. “Do you… remember your name?”

In the empty expanse, he blinks towards the husking shape of the still distant, enormous sentient – its chitin shimmering in sol’s distant glow. Crimson aches adorned by violet battle scars in his telescopic sights.

Not seen… yet

He ducks beneath a drifting fuselage, pulling a janky corpse to drift sullen as he digs into the machinery’s guts for a temporary reprieve. The arch-wing’s storage bank prongs dig into the host body’s back, digging into their spine as he struggles to force the warframe still… Too far to back out now.

Deep within the somatic link his arms tremble – the warframe’s erratic thoughts pound against his temples, surging an anxious beat he struggles to ignore. Hands draw against his temples – briefly bringing him back to the mist sullen tube of the somatic cradle. No good, he fusses, cascading himself to hold the frame from bolting. “Return to the mission,” the director tries to enforce – even as Warren draws himself to hold the warframe’s anxious nerves stable.

“Scared…?” he whispers through his thoughts, ghosting his movements through the warframe’s limb in signaling reassurance. A hand holding against bicep, coiling in a hug as the arch-wing revitalizes its energy reserves. “I’m scared too…” he muses, fumbling to find some reassurance. It aches in his chest… the possibility of another dying.

He lingers his transference override, letting the warframe curl around their knees, sightless head pressing between their knees. Their heads rolling back and forth as the director chides him – back to the mission, there’s no time to lose. Warren diminishes their tone, choking as he tries to motion a comfort to the trembling warframe lingering in space, a device strapped to their back. An arm wrapping around them, perspective askew as he tries to make contact again. “What do you remember?” he tries, nerves coaxing against the warframe’s anxiety in hopeful calm.

Their mind flickers between a featureless family – a mirroring of a murky face – ruin – the sentient hordes – and a return of the featureless family.

“You… volunteered?” he whispers. It’s not complete memories, fragments of the remaining consciousness… an incomplete transformation the Orokin would call them. Their head nods his own, slim fingers sliding against their face; concern.

Warren can hear the director berating him in the background of his thoughts. “Defiant brat; force it already.”

His thoughts coax against the warframe’s, hoisting them to their feet within the barreling waste of the fuselage. “We have to keep moving,” he whispers, “the item on our back…” he muses. He was never told what it was. “Needs to get to the giant sentient.”

The warframe trembles.

“I know they’re… scary,” his mouth turns downcast within the quiet capsule. “You’re in good hands,” he tries to fake confidence… he doesn’t know what the payload is.

He hates how level-headed he’s taking it… biting back as he lies.

“We’ll make it out of this, I’m certain.” Phantom hands hold around the warframe, hugging their center as the arch-wing hums, outstretched for flight.

An image relays through his temporal recollection. Two boys, kids. He’s unable to gauge their age.

Warren pivots the arch-wing into its blistering sprint, rolling through the debris as he directs himself to the unassuming sentient.

Echoes of mangled voices recall from the warframe, growling through their chest as their blood fumes.

“You’ve got sentients, take care of them,” the director calls – and Warren lies stunned in disbelief, casting the warframe to tumble through the remnants of a shattered ship. A burst tumbles flames to lick against their merged senses, rolling out of another sentient blast.

He was never given a weapon.

He bites back, concentration twisted. “I… I wasn’t given any weapon.”

“Oh, apologies then,” they state so nonchalant, careless as they await his arrival to the designated drop zone.

Beneath Warren’s direction the warframe growls, hands digging against the payload strap – mind relaying in bitter anxiety as it swoops beneath a lancing sentient.

A questing projectile digs against the warframe’s leg as Warren strains to endure. Keep the warframe calm, direct them towards the small notch the director keeps referring to, managing the pain as it surges through his leg within the somatic capsule. He careens themselves to and fro to avoid the beams, churning the arch-wing to blink forth as he pivots around debris – the enormous sentient’s back to him.

“Does… does this thing have a timer?” he cringes, diluting his thoughts as the warframe swerves beneath a blazing beam.

“None of your concern,” is the only reply.

Within the somatic link Warren bites his lip, surging the arch-wing into overdrive – tensing through the pain as a sentient beams the warframe’s leg. Even then, beneath his consciousness, the warframe follows, curling the payload to reside against their chest.

Figments flicker across their thoughts as the sentients pursuit them – a lying promise, a relaying of shapes barren and repeat. The form of the warframe, landing on the gravel surface left so far behind, the blurring memory of a child’s face. “You’ll see them again,” Warren hazards to proclaim with as much faux confidence he can manage…

They’re holding a bomb as they fly through the rear defenses, the objective so very close.

Warren bites back as he feels the mission director’s gaze against his senses, forcing the warframe forth as the transference connection remains adhered. They careen over the landscape of the sentient’s scarred back, twisting around flexing chitin spires as the notch in their nape falls into view.

If he’s quick, he can get them out of here; a notion he chokes back as the warframe touches ground on the hard crimson, motions held focused and sleek as the warframe presses the bomb into an open wound.

“Mission successful,” bleeds over the com-link.

His form contorts within the somatic link; arms, legs, torso – screaming, aching.

“Warframe has been lost,” he can barely hear, eyes floating in the blooming pain as he feels the warframe’s mind draw a blank… drifting.

Static blooms through the somatic link, forcing him back into the somatic cradle as his body lies trembling, hopelessly lying in agony as the somatic cradle’s envelopes spread. Hands drawn against numb skin, burrowing through dampened hair as his throat rings numb, senseless as he coils and contorts.

Mist soaks against his skin as he balls around himself, ensnared in anguish, blooming in the burning and tearing and rending of skin from muscle and bone, tattered by metal and heat as he lies in the cooling chamber of the somatic cradle. Blazing, scorching, clawing against his sanctified bones safe beneath his flesh and skin. Organs surging in zero-g simulation, torn and tattered connections as his efforts to recollect them run innate – and pointless.

He holds himself in a tense ball, and a hand pulls him by the collar out of the mystifying chill.

The guard restrains Warren from lashing back, gauntlets holding his hands against his sides as he recoils and wanes, voice gasping and anguished. “What did you do,” the guard curses – but to Warren the words are muddied, malignant as he stares down at the floor where his legs contort, straining to pull himself back together.

“I… I detonated the bomb when I was supposed to – “ the mission director creaks, static and onlooking as the guard holds the anguish teen from scooping phantom guts back within himself – arms held against his back. He’s trembling, contorting, writing in agony as he feels flesh slosh against his legs, senses blinded to the featureless floor staring back. “Right where the board claimed it’d disable the sentient outside of Neptune…”

“Did you have to detonate it right on top of him?” the guard curses, yanking Warren up to his feet as the teen’s mind lulls in the belief his body lies in ruin, shredded in the blast. Gore spread downwards, chest burst open to the flourish of blistered lungs. He crumbles to his knees, quaking as his stomach tries to evacuate against the mask; arms fight against the guard’s hands, trying to hold his face. “You better fucking hope he recovers,” they growl back, lifting Warren back to his wobbling feet. Only his breathing evacuates from his mouth – stomach long made empty, bitter against his tongue.

His thoughts contort between the swirling sensation in his phantom gut, against the pain diluting in his spine as he fights to find his footing through a sensory fractured pelvis. Warren’s mind writhes as he barely is able to hold himself upright, his focus made only though his furrowed brow, staring angrily as his head lulls. The guard forcefully assists him through the doorway, quick to parse him through to the waiting rooms.

Warren’s mental mapping rings inside his head as he tries to direct himself to look, barely glancing through his tear-stained peripheral vision as he stumbles forward. “Fucking…” is all his voice can manage, nerves reverting to the aching stun that echoes through his body. Beads of tears prelude his stumbling steps, all to use to the silence following him.

The shift of conversations to mute, the feeling of observing eyes as his broken body struggles to find itself in the nervous confusion. Legs wobble as though a bag of organs dangle from his stomach, shuffling as though his healthy bones are fractured and torn from his body. Warren bites his tongue as he hisses, arms twisting in the firm but cautious golden gauntlets.

“You okay, kid?” he hears the guard whisper; Warren still unable to turn and face his safeguard assistance – at least there was someone that cared in this wretched place.

“I’ll… live,” Warren heaves, coughing as his lungs strain between their rightful place and torn and displayed. Nerves strain under the load of his body, stumbling against the guard’s armor for a moment before forcing himself to stand on his own again. “Not… thefirstime,” he chokes, “abombhasgoneoff,” and lurches, stumbling forward and barely down to his knees.

 

Warren’s relieved as he lies within an isolation cell again, staring at the winding arboriforms within the ceilings as his vision drifts between then and nows. His hands coil against his stomach, gripping the standard uniform as he echoes his motions to draw phantom guts back within his body. Cold air tickles against his tear-stung eyes, sight obscured by his sweat stained bangs. His breath is heavy, quaking as he tries to force it slowed and controlled. Panic had already enveloped him as he stumbled into the locked room, coiling fetal as his senses try to process the reality of his health.

His impatience has drawn thin, lying numbed within his chest as he only aches for peace, a semblance of comfort as his body tries to resound damage that isn’t there. Lungs breathing outside of his chest cavity, bones shattered and jutting free from stunned muscles. Bleeding out in the silence of space…

Arms wrap around his half-covered face, sighing within the mask as fingers crawl through his damp hair.

“When will this war be over…” he whispers, watching the meandering motions of the arboriforms, their steady and firm structure weaving in intermittent pulsations. His eyes slip close as he listens to the tunes beneath the floor, the hum of the arboriforms barely audible as his thoughts are adrift. “What do you know…?” he questions empty, hands clutching against his face as he strains to shut out the hurting in his chest. They’ve always interested him… their weaving so near similar to the energy tendrils of the void, their connection to the somatic cradles that pivot his mind so agonizingly far away.

Leaving bodies in his transference wake… stunned and alone.

Between his fists and bangs, welting eyes stare at the stark white foliage beyond the gaps in the ceiling.

Forced between cradle and isolation, barely able to catch conversation with other children before a hand shoves his back, a hand swatting his covered cheek.

Gloved fingers trace around the mask as his thoughts contort, ailing in thought.

Beneath it can feel blood flake, oozing against his skin and separated from the piercing prods.

Vision down-cast, turned away, Warren crawls into a sit, motions stunted as his body aches from the blazing of transference pains. Bones still feeling misaligned, organs shifted; his hand reminds his nerves that he’s okay. Heaving a sigh, he lets his two-toned eyes drift closed, tainted with blazing orange and gentle blue – a brilliance he doesn’t deserve, he relents.

The walls, emotionless cream. The gilding, uncaring gold that marks Orokin designation. The barren grey of barren care.

Warren’s legs crawl against his chest, choking beneath the bright mask – a hand holding against it.

A punishment coverup.

Welting tears press against his knees, coiling forth against the numbing ache in his stomach.

When will this all end, his mind doubts.

Will this ever end, his anxiety entertains.

Suffer through to relive it again, blown up and torn apart, tattered and pulverized back into a pained unfeeling mess. A useful asset, his thoughts strain, what if he wasn’t useful? What if he wasn’t able to survive the suicidal pains, the anguishing of living another death, abandoning those dazed and confused.

The other tenno; they noted he was resilient to permanent damage. What happens to them?

Warren strains to recollect distant memories, when it wasn’t eject and replace, when a mere slap wouldn’t make him recoil in blistering pain. What did he do. What in the fuck did he do back then?

…

…

Why does it even matter…?

His head lies back against the minimal cushion of the bench build into the wall.

Eyes sit in half-aversion as he stares at the ceiling far above. Emotions running numb; he won’t break the cycle on his own. Between his subservience and aching empathy… he has no hope. Beaten again and again in empire desperation; perhaps, if he could manage, he could prevent them from disconnecting him, remained mentally fused?

No, his anxiety aches.

They’d just abort the connection again, leaving another left in his wake.

Fingers press around his brow, curling against his crossing brows.

And they pull themselves around his body again, forcing himself in a heavy sigh.

It’s not like he has much to lose.

He doubts they have much sympathy for him, more useful to them alive than dead.

Stop thinking…

Warren head buries between his knees.

Just stop it.

He strains, starving to think of something else to delay the apathy filling his heart. Eyes turning to fixate on the ceiling once more, watching the weaves and the sways, to concentrate on something to pull himself once again centered before his mind falters again into self-decay.

Eventually, his body will mend the nervous damage, his body again reclining in a somatic cradle to link with another warframe … and unfortunately, devastatingly, with the possibility its for another deemed suicide mission. Others can’t handle it, but he can… the only mentality for why it’s okay for him to endure as he leaves another broken body behind into his own bitter agony in the mystifying safety of the somatic cradle. Fingers dig against his legs, squeezing his face between his knees.

He’s exhausted by this, mind battered and in disarray; the same feelings again and again.

Air creeps through him as his mind banters between revolt and the repeating lie – that it’d get better on its own. If he doesn’t do something, nothing will change. If he doesn’t at least try…

If he doesn’t try…

Why should he even bother…?

He pulls his hands away, ebbing with void-infusion, and punches his opposing open palm.

“Hmm, that hurt,” he barely complains, shaking his barely bruised open palm. “Fuck,” he grumbles, cradling his hand against his still simmering gut. “Oh, Warren you fucking idiot,” and sighs, hand stinging from the hardened punch.

He’s got to at least try. And his gaze returns to the arboriforms above him, questing to bring back his fragmented resolve.

The Orokin have already taken so much from him; its time to fight back.

Warren’s hand throbs against his stomach, blowing an annoyed sigh as he lies back.


	2. Coping with Trauma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned, includes visceral graphic content with a teenage character.
> 
> -+- Kudos and comments are encouraged! -+-

Back in the somatic chamber he’s forced to wait… not that he entirely minds.

Sat between the observation of a pair of guards, his vision stares out through his down-turned bangs, watching the director handle his mission selection on the other side of the room. Warren can’t read much from their body language as their voice is hushed, pacing within the confines of the alcove booth, a hand held against their ear as they talk tactics… or… he’s not quite sure. Their voice is hushed, but he hears the occasional stain as they fight against shouting, turning away ever so often from the mission screen.

“What’s going on…?” he whispers, partly to aerate his own confusion. From what he can remember of prior sessions, most have already selected his mission before he arrived.

Silence, the guards static his sides. Warren rests his head in his palm, staring over to the individual somatic cradle awaiting him. Anticipation echoes through his nerves, confidence running strong; he can do this, he can retaliate against them… either that or it’s his burning lack of self-preservation. Not that it matters either way, hiding his face between his drawn knees.

One chuffs quietly, whispering to the other, “heard its getting a turn with a ‘deranged’ loki,” Warren peaks between his arm and hair. “Last one that controlled it couldn’t handle the stress, barely completed a single retrieval mission with it.” Warren adverts his gaze back to the somatic cradle; perhaps he did have a chance after all. The warframe’s mind more stable than the confused bodies he’s been forced to leave behind.

“What… what happened?” he whispers, choking down his excitement beneath false hesitation.

“Doesn’t concern you, demon,” a hand presses his head against his shoulders. Warren flows through the dismissing gesture, vision narrowed. Their voice turns hushed as his head is held down between his arms, “heard it was unreliable, so might be set for a decommission.”

“Only now?” he can hear the other whisper, “wasn’t one set to the medical ward because of the nerve damage it allowed?”

“Who knows,” the other signs, releasing Warren’s head, “not that much difference from the directors, this one took the brunt of a brood-class bomb and a few days later back for more.” They chuckle, laying a hand on Warren’s back and patting.

Warren barely lifts himself from resting on his arms, barely turning to the side to throw a scowl at the guard. Can’t say anything, less he wants to be struck again. “Did he? Heard he was barely able to walk after that mission.” And the teen throws the other guard a hidden glance.

“Try walking after a bomb goes off barely a meter from your chest,” he hisses, feeling a gold gauntlet swat his head.

“Shut up.”

Warren rubs the stinging in his skull as he keeps his vision adverted, staring beneath his hair to the somatic cradle. As much as he hates the experience he at least has his own autonomy within the billowing mist, crossing his arms around his drawn knees. There’s still time to figure out his plans; but he doesn’t even know the mission or the frame’s temperament. Would he even be able to get through to them, either way?

His head buries against his knees. Across the room he can hear the director strain, biting back sobs before slamming a device against the podium within their booth. “Throw him in,” they curse, mumbling under their breath.

Warren throws off a gauntlet trying to tug against his arm, disregarding the resulting backhand as he pulls himself from his knee-tucking sit to stand upright… his stomach still lightly aching and extubated by a sensational choke in his throat. Excitement bleeds into hesitation, held static as the guards move forth to escort him to the somatic cradle, the oversized envelope flaps presenting to him the awaiting sensory deprivation. He forces himself forward as his thoughts race, peeling his attention from anxious thoughts to the open pod awaiting him.

Through his gloves he can feel the somatic cradle’s chill, barely humming beneath his touch as he hoists himself over the edge as it pulls itself back to settle in an arboriform recess. Reclined in the numbing chill, he closes his eyes, releasing a sigh as the mist begins to take hold, ceasing his senses dull and numb as the director’s voice calls inside his mind – completely shut off from the somatic chamber. They’re having trouble finding their words, mumbling outside of his range as his body senses delude.

“There… was some difficulties transporting the warframe,” they choke, biting back sob and correcting misspoken words. “You’ll need to travel the rest of the way. It’s connected but is being difficult. There will be no diversion for this mission.”

His sight rings blinded as he finds the warframe’s transference bolt through the somatic connection, latching his senses tight for a brief moment before his nerves shutter, lashing, electricity singing through a merged spine. Claws sing through the air and yank the offending object from a trembling hand, sightless vision turning to a faceless handler. They collapse beneath his sight, crawling backwards as the warframe forces against Warren’s somatic signal. ‘Get out of my head,’ hisses through the melding mind, throwing the electric prod far from reach.

‘You’re… conscious…?’ Warren stumbles to reply, nerves hesitant as he observes the warframe’s surrounding in peripheral as the loki shoves an Orokin guard to the side. Through a brief reflection the teen can catch his hosting warframe’s visage, twinned horns arching forth above twinning eye slit that stare back and accusatory. Sharp teeth lie bared as the warframe yanks Warren’s somatic nerves out of his control, collecting a blood splattered catalyst device left on a table.

Off to the side, Warren catches sight of the frame’s transport pod… one lined with tattered restraints.

Warren draws his nerves to ebb aligned with the loki’s, latching his senses to the warframe even as they try to shrug him off, growling as discomfort crawls through a body threatened by a transfer of control. ‘Leave me alone,’ lashes back, rejecting Warren from controlling his arm holding the device. Static rings out through the somatic connection, making the teen shake his own hand on the other side of the connection.

‘You know I can’t,’ Warren sighs, echoing through the warframe’s senses as they drop off the platform overlooking the loading bay. Their merged bodies hold the device tucked beneath their arm, as they roll down amongst the guards waiting for the loki – whose pelt blooms into invisibility, small feet bounding over the confused masses. ‘They’d let you through, you know,’ the teen watches in a rear perspective as the warframe meanders towards a marker carried through Warren to the loki.

‘What are the objectives,’ the warframe growls, and Warren bounces back to the mission director’s signal – still silent.

‘I don’t know…’ Warren sighs, ‘they seem to have gone dark now.’

The loki keeps its distance from the market settled just meters from the resting transport carrier, even as the Martian dust whorls around the comforting invisibility. And Warren allows them, merely presiding over the mission as they wait for the mission director to return. Small paws pad through the dust as the warframe eyes the transport ship, waiting beneath its massive shadow as the cloak persists – impatient.

Warren’s thoughts choke, this is his chance. ‘Do you have a name?’

‘Does it really matter?’ the loki snaps back, turning over a shoulder as they feel the teenager’s presence float over his nerves.

Warren sulks, turning away from the merging senses, he berates himself as he waits for the passive voice of the director to guide him. Following orders is so much easier than forcing himself to be pro-active… mind holding his sensory cheek in resentment. He observes as the loki snaps his cloak back on as they wait, a shiver shaking down their spine.

Silence…

‘Sorry,’ the warframe returns, heaving a sigh through their dark blotched vents, glancing over the abandoned Martian architecture surrounding them. Barren and laid waste with blast marks, the adobe structures sit smoldering and splattered with blood and gory remnants of the small colony. The loki’s dull cerulean eye slits browse over the landscape, hoisting the catalyst between their arms.

“Child,” a new voice speaks over Warren’s somatic connection. Not the previous director, a voice distinctively lighter in tone. “Take that warframe to the far end of the colony’s reach, as directed.” A marker swarms through Warren’s mind, drawing him and the loki to turn. “The mission has been set to automation, and will direct you accordingly; sabotage the facility, and leave no survivors.”

Warren barely suggests to the warframe to get to a higher vantage point – but halfway through the loki has already vaulted themselves off the ship’s engines, small feet pattering on the sleek Orokin design with the light clicking of small claws. ‘Buildings in the distance,’ the loki huffs, golden claws moving nimbly on the shuffled catalyst capsule. Within it lies a wrapped wiring device, and he snaps the lid close, locking it away from the blowing red sands. ‘Compulsive overclock device,’ he mumbles through their meet minds.

‘You know a fair bit, don’t you?’ Warren relays, his nerves following the warframe’s own control as he collects the device again beneath his arms.

The loki sighs, dropping off the carrier’s bow and rolling through the Martian dust, tumbling over rumble. ‘New?’ they question, jostling Warren’s senses as he rockets through the abandoned architecture, padding quietly through the crackling of smoldering fires, over bodies lied torn and in disarray as they merely phase through their surroundings.

‘No,’ Warren sighs, still simmering to find his words. They launch over obstructions lied in their path to the distant marker as they descend into the red endless desert, one littered with the wreckage of small vehicles and ruined with crisped bodies. ‘I’m usually the last one out,’ he tries to joke, fumbling in his own indecisiveness, ‘I’m… usually set on missions where the warframe dies in the end.’

‘Figures,’ the loki huffs, lunging onto the overturned wreckage of a trailer. They stare out into the horizon where the marker sets blatant, small feet finding their place in the mild burning. ‘You body snatchers don’t want to get your hands dirty and send others out to make the mess only to clean it up again.’

The teen lies silent, fumbling to find his words – a yearning to ask but… hesitant. They’re right.

‘How many died,’ the loki hisses, ‘because of you’

And Warren lies frozen, churning inwards as the words bite through his false resolve, mind crumpling inwards as he feels so small… so useless. ‘I can’t remember…’ is all he can break through, thoughts coiling and held reserved as the loki carries them to their open-end objective. Any effort he devises to speak snap shut as his emotions stunt, emotions balling and fumbling sedated.

The loki lurches forward, sprinting over the open terrain as the cloak flickers him into obscurity; he bounds over the crudely laid mines, ricocheting and rolling from marked debris to the next. Better than anything Warren can devise himself, letting the loki remain in control of himself, simmering in self-doubt. What would come of his deviation to sulking between suffering and sullen? Would he be punished more, what would happen to the warframe – hadn’t he heard they’d be decommissioned?

Warren coils within himself, holding himself tight as his nerves echo through the warframe’s limbs, barely hampering any deviation in the loki’s momentum to the marked complex. His back lies against the walls of the complex, a searing heat that Warren dismisses in his dismal state… and the loki moves away from it, leaping over the bone-white wall indicating the outer perimeter. ‘You’ve been through a lot… haven’t you.’

‘Yeah…’ Warren whispers back, barely observing as the loki peers over the dusted structures. Tarps lie over the resting ships as the storm whirls in the distance, casting red sand to disrupt the loki’s cloak. His observant eyes flicker around the scenery barely saved from the Martian dust storms, latching towards the middle structure humming with dull energy. ‘Small for high stakes,’ he mumbles, casting his sight through an invasive reading of the region delivered to him by the mission director. ‘Most of it is beneath, radio scans are scrambled. We’ll be going in blind,’ he whispers to the loki, ‘as usual.’

‘Fine to me,’ the loki recalls, dropping down onto an adobe hut.

‘And we’ve no weapons,’ Warren sighs, arms drawing around himself and echoing them ever so restrained through the somatic link.

‘That’s fine to me,’ the loki shakes off Warren’s nervous coiling, leaping from one structure to the next.

‘Just like last time…’ the teenager whimpers, nearly making the loki stumble as he careens through the air.

The warframe rumbles through their somatic link, growling as he snaps control back from Warren. And he persists, latching onto the central tower as he stares down to the structures below – following faint wires. ‘What’s with you,’ they sneer, yanking the lines clean from their housing in the tower as the storm whirls around them – electricity sparking as the wires sail through the air.

The billows of a storm looms on the horizon, a glint of white catching Warren’s attention – the transport vessel. ‘Aren’t you afraid of dying…?’ he barely whispers, following the loki’s movements as their senses become one, pulling a stubborn line from the tower.

‘No,’ the warframe returns, dropping down the structure with the catalyst device still in tow. Turning back, the loki watches for movement at ground level – still more wires to pull. He places the device on a nearby structure before returning to the tower’s remaining teethers, yanking the power lines clean out as the dust storm rolls and curves the dust around him and the tower. ‘The power source is below, this might just be a signal booster.’

They scoop up the catalyst device, holding it tucked beneath their arms as their senses become attuned despite the whorls of red sand. A voice stammers and curses, pivoting towards the source in an instant. The capsule hushes itself in the red sand as the glint of claws drag a well-clothed body from the crack in the door swung open by the storming sands. Warmth runs over their chest as a shout is cut short, heaving the mass away in a simple, quick motion. It muffles into the sand, and Warren already motions to pick up the capsule once more. ‘Should be able to… here we go,’ the teen mumbles, snapping a door open as their conjoined senses intertwine.

With ease the warframe descends the pathway into the subterranean stronghold, balancing himself through the support struts and over-hangs. Their sight snaps to the central spire in the middle of the open center, wandering over the empty catwalk connecting quiet overarching stations. Visualizers blink through their consciousness – sight settling to the sparks of rubble wedged between makeshift structures glowing with firelight. Hastily settlement from the Orokin dominion… all that will be left is rubble… Warren hesitates – a sense surging the warframe to halt.

Dark blotched vents breathe deep the smell of damp Martian soil, the taste of smoke lingering ill with traces of rocket fuel, listening to the dampened gusts of the presiding storm fuming overhead. Below them lies the echoes of machinery, of trickling water and hushed voices. The tinkering of open air kitchen wear drawn of warmth and comfort, familial as conversations banter intertwined, muffled far below as their somatic link conjoins their nerves into singular motions. Under the teenager’s somatic control, the loki rolls his muscles, loose and limp like the restraint Warren gives him, breathing inside their merging minds.

‘Scared?’ the loki whispers, shuffling the capsule in their merged grasp.

‘No,’ Warren returns with a sullen frown, flexing their claws for an upcoming slaughter. ‘I just hate this part… they don’t deserve this.’

‘I know…’ shoulders roll once more, stretching their legs to limber for the upcoming stress, ‘used to it?’

‘All too often,’ the teen mumbles, brow furrowing within the somatic cradle, mist quivering over his mental transmission. ‘And all to use to dying.’

Hesitation fumes inside Warren’s thoughts, of bodies torn a sunder by rending claws glinting gold, those only deserving of punishment for living outside the Orokin’s reign of control… He inhales again, stilling his thoughts, nerves coursing through their merged senses. Every sense of the choking environment surrounding Warren as the loki’s senses are his own. A portion remains untouched, however, as the loki can still manage himself, body fluxing between his own control and the teenager’s influence.

‘So,’ the warframe sighs, ‘when you said you where the last one out…’ their body stands to full height, claws clicking on the metal board bearing their comparatively light weight, the capsule held tight. ‘You felt all of it, didn’t you…’

Warren goes silent, strangling his irritated nerves, fighting back against the coiling in his chest as he looks down to the innocent rebels, glancing at the device beneath their arms… and the glint of their claws. He always felt so light…yet dauntingly tethered by the Orokin watching over him. ‘Yes.’

They bound over the railing, the warframe’s pelt flickering into obscurity as they roll into the raised platform overlooking the central pillar – a tower linking the outpost to the distant sky rumbling with a dust storm, their solitary connection to the depth of the origin system. Their invisible palm grips against the worn steel structure as they pivot further down into the center, dropping into a crouch beside the piercing tower emerging into the swarming sand storm.

Nimble fingers easily withdraw the device, prodding stinging wiring within for a power source to leech from as the device begins to surge to life – humming as the drive swirls into overdrive. Haphazardly a connection is made through a port in a neighboring console, injecting bites of aching code as the machinery surges and blooms. Smoke sizzles within as they course into overclock mode, sparking deep within as the mission objective startles into a mere countdown – and Warren wretches the loki away from the device, leaping up onto an overhanging position. A questioning bark simmers as they turn back to machine, as fire blossoms from the hardware.

Electric wiring crackles beneath the overload, sizzling and searing as white smoke steams from the aerating vents in the back of the console and the tower connection. Heat blazing through insulation, sparks flying as rebels race over with their extinguishers, shouting in a language neither can pin down…

And the area blooms as the device ticks to null.

The loki feels the teenager’s nerve flinch.

Numerous voices scream as the fireball cascades over the region, the tower turning off-tilt and leaning, structure dented as the floor crumbles beneath the blast zone. Bodies, burning, screaming, tumble into the pile of burning debris as the lights flicker and die.

Below the blaze beams the only light apart from the occasional glint of a candle and isolated sources, casted into the sound of the explosion. One flickers over their location… and another stands right beside them.

But the warframe can’t move; Warren stands frozen.

Their invisibility flickers before dissipating, and a bundled face turns to them, shining a light into the warframe’s sight. They shout; their secrecy blown.

Warren snaps out of his sinking dread to tug the light out of their hand, golden claws hushed in the darkness as they burrow and sink into flesh, tearing into their scarf as they sever head from body, throwing it into the lingering darkness – a bullet tears through their shoulder, casting the warframe to growl… and Warren takes it, moving their body into the seclusion of darkness.

Short claws click against the exposed metal and creaking floorboards, eyes alight in the dim upper structure. Their vision blooms into infrared, flickering through the warm and cool. Claws sing through the air as they ensnare another, tearing through their trachea and making them silent – and Warren’s mind has turned inverted, emotions shut down as he forces himself to obey the orders glinting across his screen.

Exterminate the survivors.

One to one their nerves move, the teenager’s fumbles made right by the warframe’s innate ferocity as they slink across the makeshift refuge. Cyan eye slits glint the messing red as they move door to door, thoughts muted into blazing instinct for the sickening taste of red. Hunger aches within the warframe’s stomach, biting and tearing into an outstretched hand – and Warren gags, spitting out the vile warmth as a gun presses against their side and fires.

Their merged body shutters, mute vents gasping for air as they hold down the gunman – one screaming for mercy, calling against the Orokin bastards before golden claws dig into their eyes and mouth. Inhumane strength pulls their skin, digging and protruding them into anguished screams, whacking the butt of the empty gun against the warframe’s skull.

And it crumples as claws dig into their skull, the loki shuttering, wheezing as a hand snaps against their side to cradle the bleeding wound. It won’t last, either of them know, rising back to their click of clawed paws. They snap forth as another light finds them, a parade of noise as gunfire flourishes around them, scratching the loki’s pelt as he ducks behind a structure, vaulting over and snaking behind the rounding confusion. Golden claws snap around another neck, digging against their esophagus, crushing it as they throttle them over the side railing – a creaking scream tunes up the screams far below.

Warren snaps himself into focus as the loki persists in the slaughter of the sparsely armed rebels; claws meeting crude blunt weaponry, rending fresh from retching bones in feral momentum. Jagged teeth ensnare around tattered flesh as the teenager’s partial departure as the warframe’s stomach aches for energy, for sustenance as bodies lie at their nerve-merging feet.

Scooping, drawing; damp tendrils pull in ropes of flesh in sickening efficiency – fulfilling the loki’s drained energy well deep within his chest. Filling, replenished, Warren snaps their mind back together; sparking through the somatic link as they sail over the edge of the platform floor.

People weave and sway as they land on bloody paws, hands dripping crimson in the disemboweling light.

Faster…

And faster…

And even faster still…

Their merged lungs heave under the choking smoke, blood dripping red and shimmering mute violet from head to claws clicking on metal. Wounds ache against their temple, an overarching horn healing in the simmering taste of victory…

Its bitter.

Ever so bitter in Warren’s mouth as he strains to choke back the anxiety boiling in his throat, the taste of fresh gore stinging his tongue as the warframe’s body heaves. Agitated vents inhale deep as they bath in the amber glow of the smoldering wreckage remnants of the signal tower laid waste by the explosion, senses reigning static in the smell of cooking flesh and burnt fabrics. Their merged senses go lax as they crumple down in the glow of the central pillar, Warren’s nerves snapping against the warframe’s sense of control… too tired to resist.

‘You alright, kid…?’ the warframe sighs, hands lying lax over his crossed legs. Exhausted.

Silence…

Warren’s thoughts lied crushed as they glance over what remains of the squandered rebellion. Made a massacre before they caused the Orokin a dent of trouble. Air rushes through the loki’s vents as he exhales, choking on the smoke stressing to find its way through his airways – the sand storm swirls overhead, metal aching under the strain. ‘You should detach, kid… it might be a while,’ the warframe mumbles, sight turned downcast.

‘No,’ Warren clenches, squeezing out the draw of angry tears – an aching balls within his chest, teetering through the stress and grime, the emotions a bare simmer before the overpour.

‘Why not,’ the loki sighs, glancing along the spire of the signal tower, ‘you feel sorry for them…?’

‘No,’ chokes.

Straining, aching, baring restraint through the act of dismissive words… depersonalization fast track held to halt. He has nothing else to think about.

Choking, fumbling… barely held together awaiting a single nudge.

‘Then what is it,’ exhales the tired warframe.

A hand balls against their merged senses, held against half of the loki’s face as the teenager’s emotional barrier crumbles, barely held together as the silence persists. So quiet, listening to the crackle of flames, the cries of creaking metal as the storm surging overhead blows, the solitude overcoming the mental restraint held on just far too long. His voice huffs, hisses, holding back words straining to pour from the exhaustion and the ever too comfortable surges of pain, of agony caught within the wells of his mind. And the loki, too physically exhausted to care, lies back – and the dismission daunts Warren over the edge.

He wants his voice heard!

‘I’m fucking tired of this!’ Warren sobs, ‘every fucking time I get into this pod. It’s another death – someone else dies because of me, I kill someone, and another, and another, and no one fucking cares!’ Chokes mirror through their senses, either provoked by the existential dread of the smoke inhalation – the loki doesn’t know nor mind. ‘They just chuck me into some fucking room hoping I’d get better after- I do but, they throw me into this fucking pod all over again! No medicine. No bandages. Just scoop him up and throw into this fucking room, yeah, he’s certain to get better!’

A hand plucks debris from their side and chucks it over the edge of the platform, listening as it tumbles and echoes in the dampening smoke.

‘I can’t keep fucking doing this,’ Warren cries, sensory arms rubbing the warframe’s eyes across his own spilling tears. ‘I tried to fight back, but there’s no one there for me. No one. Not one fucking person lifts their finger in this forsaken place, not one single ounce of sympathy when it feels like my guts have been torn out – and there’s nothing! I know there’s nothing, but I can still feel it, I still lived it! Just because I’m some fuckinggoddamn BRAT doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen!’

The loki can feel as fluid drips down their cheeks, and their sensory hand wipes away at the tears stinging against the teenager’s eyes.

‘I just don’t remember how many I lead to their death – I didn’t even know. I didn’t even know…’ chokes, swallowing in a daunting inhale, ‘I can barely remember the last five time I’ve nearly died, I can’t even grasp to try – I have no idea why,’ his breathing trembles, straining to force himself calm, trying to fight against the overflow of emotions. ‘I’m just a fucking idiot…. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just-I’m just tired. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to keep dying and living over and over again,’ his voice begins to muffle, held back into silence as his nerves peel themselves from the warframe’s body. ‘I’ll give you your body back… I just wanted to save someone… but I’m an idiot, I can’t do anything right…. I’m sorry.’ His voice runs hushed, mumbled as he brushes back tears within the somatic cradle and resigned.

‘No,’ the warframe sighs, snatching back the young teen’s somatic signal. ‘It’s okay. I just don’t know what its like on the other end… the others talked so cheerfully, obedient… trusting.’

‘I’m…I’m not the others. I was separated for being a ‘bother’… caused too much trouble and they just… strapped into this role of being some fucking ‘valuable asset’.’ Warren chokes on his own breath, tears streaking as he tries to hold himself in reserve. ‘I don’t… I don’t know what would happen to me,’ he trembles, hands gripping around himself. ‘If I didn’t follow orders… what would happen to me then? I’m just sick of this bullshit, I don’t want to live like this anymore… dying and just waiting for my body to hopefully pull itself back together.’

‘I know,’ the loki sighs, stretching up to their full stature before they begin to proceed up the numerous stairs towards the highest quarters of the underground refuge. ‘Neither do I,’ he exhales, forcing out the smoke trying to find its way into his vents, slinking through the billows of smoke as he listens to the teenager simmer on the other end of the line, shaking breaths falling calm and steady. ‘It’s not your fault, kid,’ he huffs, forcing a heavy door shut to dismiss the smoke from the singular adobe hut that covers one of many entrances. ‘We’re all just cogs in this system, both you and me. It’s none of our faults to just exist.’ He settles down within the adobe structure as the dust storm surges outside, banging the door violently against its hinges.

‘Do you… have a name, warframe?’ Warren tries to choke back, still relegated to the isolated pod, drawing himself momentarily as part of him remains in location with the sullen loki.

Sat upon a crate, there’s not much the loki can spot in the low light, eyes glancing through the darkness as outside a tarp whips against a starship. A hand brushes over a dust covered cartridge nearby – a box laid in storage. Eye slit squint, ‘it’s… T’viska. The name’s T’viska.’

Warren chuckles, ‘I saw that,’ and his voice catches in his throat before a cough. Within his mind he feels a tug, the somatic link jostled and yanked, tugging in the back of his skull. He churns himself to check against the signal of the pod – feeling the semblance of the mission director’s return.

“Get him out of there,” barely shouts in the distance to the open mic, “and get that disconnect that damn somatic link already!”

‘I guess… this is goodbye?’ the loki, T’viska, sighs, staring off into an uncertain distance as the storm howls outside, curling up upon the crate as he makes himself comfortable for the wait.

‘I’m sure we’ll meet again,’ the teenager smiles, brilliant and bright, testing their somatic connection as the envelopes of the somatic cradle begin to unwrap – it’s become ensnare. ‘One of the guards… before I got dropped in, mentioned you were set for decommission… now I don’t think they have a choice in the matter.’ His wide smile is the last trace T’viska feels echo through his thoughts, an achieving smile brimmed with red eyes and dripping nose.

And he feels a blistering sting against his cheek, sending him reeling as spikes dig into sensory skin.

When T’viska withdraws his hand… there’s nothing.

A figment of a slap.

Outside the somatic cradle Warren holds his cheek, hissing and recoiling as the Overseer presides over him with a scowl. Four guards wait at her side as she motions for them to pick him up – none aware that beneath the secretive masking that holds his punishment for disobedience… he’s smiling, beaming a satisfied grin. “What has gotten into you, demon,” she snarls, looking between him and the open somatic cradle.

Warren’s won this time… the somatic link made mutual.

The teenager stands reluctant between the guards, arms forced back as they wait for dismissive orders.

Even then, he’s still grinning, smirking no doubt as copper stings against his tongue, fluid held captive behind the mask. For him to be of use, he must be connected to the loki, and vise-versa.

“Move this nuisance,” she insists with a frown, browsing through an implant deep within her skull for an empty somatic cradle, one just right for lengthy missions. “Redirect the warframe’s signal to cradle 4-9-point-7-3. Take this brat into isolation for detox for now. Once they’ve secured the signal, put him in the pod.” She barks, directing the Orokin guards to take care of the disobedient tenno.

Confident, Warren stands tall, glancing back for a moment. “Fuck. You,” he whispers before his head is forced back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -+- Kudos and comments are encouraged! -+-

**Author's Note:**

> -+- Kudos and comments are encouraged! -+-


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